The chaotic evacuation of Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7, 2025 still haunts Jaime Geller and thousands of other Palisades residents who self-evacuated at the same time - which brought Sunset Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway to a dangerous standstill.
Cars were abandoned as the fire reached both sides of evacuation routes that were the only way out. Those cars had to be bulldozed out of the way to make way for first responders.
"I saw people with babies... I saw older people with their caretakers. I saw dogs. I saw my neighbors. I saw suitcases," Geller said.
She evacuated on foot to PCH, prepared to jump into the ocean if she had to. Geller survived, but her home and business did not.
"We pay taxes. You expect firefighters to keep you safe. You expect a police person to come and traffic control when there's a mass evacuation of 30,000 people at one time, and I realize now why my Malibu friends don't leave their homes and my Topanga friends don't leave their homes... cause they already learned this. That no one's coming."
"It is a miracle that no one died in that evacuation on January 7," said Los Angeles Councilwoman Traci Park, who represents Pacific Palisades.
Park says traffic control is a huge part of the assessment underway in regards to evacuation routes.
"That was a huge miss on January 7. And even in the places where we had traffic control officers, the protocols that were being used were not effective given the volume of vehicles."